Cooper went forward, Rose on his shoulder.
"Be careful, you two," Elly called.
She trailed a respectful distance behind the pair, but she wasn't unduly concerned for their safety. If anyone could handle a catacomb ghost, it was the very powerful chief of the Aurora Springs Guild. Her real worry was that the UDEM up ahead would turn out to be the reason why Bertha had not made it back out of the tunnels.
When he reached the point where the five other corridors came together, Cooper turned into the nearest without any hesitation. She followed with appropriate caution.
Cooper stopped so suddenly that Rose had to use all six paws to keep her perch.
"What is it?" Elly asked.
"Got a problem," Cooper said softly, looking into the tunnel.
She reached the circular intersection and turned to see whatever it was that had riveted him.
She sensed the new psi energy before she saw the source.
For a few seconds the only thing that registered was the wrongness of the light flooding the passageway. Cooper and Rose were bathed in the odd, pulsating glow. It wasn't the familiar acid green that she associated with ghost energy and the quartz walls. Instead it was an eerie, unnatural blue that produced a deeply disturbing effect on her senses.
Was this what vertigo felt like? she wondered.
She was looking into a whirling vortex of energy. It was like gazing into the heart of a tornado or a water spout.
The vortex appeared to have opened in the floor. It spiraled downward to an invisible vanishing point. Lightning sparked. The angry, seething light swirled in a wide pool of dissonance energy waves that completely covered the floor of the wide tunnel, wall to wall.
Aside from the occasional crackle of the miniature lightning strikes, the blue tornado made no audible sound. But Elly's psi senses were rattling and shaking like win-dowpanes in a violent storm.
"What's wrong with the floor?" she asked, dumbfounded.
"Blue ghost," Cooper said.
"No." She shook her head, uncomprehending. "It can't be. There is no such thing. Blue ghosts are just old hunters' tales. Everyone knows that."
But it was definitely a form of dissonance energy, she thought. There was no mistaking the wild, flaring power.
"Is that your friend's sled?" Cooper asked.
She managed to jerk her gaze off the vortex and spotted the familiar shape of Bertha's aging utility sled. It was perched on the far rim of the pulsing, rippling vortex. The energy storm lapped at one rear wheel, as though trying to suck it down into the heart of the whirlwind.
There was no sign of Bertha.
"Dear heaven," Elly whispered. Horror threatened to close her throat. "That ghost got her. No one could survive a close brush with that thing. But where's the body? There's no body."
Chapter 7
COOPER LOOKED AT ELLY'S HORRIFIED FACE. IN THE pulsing blue light she looked a little like a ghost, herself, the old-fashioned, supernatural kind.
"Don't panic on me," he said, automatically falling back on the tone of icy command that he had learned to use in the days when he had worked the catacombs as a hunter. "Save the hysterics for later. We don't have time for them now."
"I am not panicking," she snapped, irritated. "I'm worried sick about what has happened to Bertha. There's a difference."
The cold anger in her voice reassured him. "Good to know. All right, there's not much option here. I'm going to de-rez this thing. Then we'll look for Bertha."
Elly's eyes widened. "You can handle this monster?"
"Yes."
"Wow. Okay, I'm impressed, Mr. Guild Boss."
He was privately amazed that she had accepted his statement as fact. In her shoes, a lot of people would have refused to believe his claim.
"Cooper?"
He studied the blue ghost, probing carefully for the patterns. "Yeah?"
"Do you… do you think that blue UDEM somehow swallowed up Bertha and… and incinerated her?"
"Ghost energy doesn't burn hot enough to destroy flesh and bone. It can scorch and singe, but that's about the limit. Mostly it fries the psi senses. You know that as well as I do."
"But this is a blue ghost. No one knows much about them. They're not even supposed to exist."
"Let me get rid of it, and then we'll see what we've got." He lifted Rose down off his shoulder and handed the dust bunny to her. "Here, take gorgeous. Things might get a little tricky here. I don't want her to get caught in the backwash."
"No." She took Rose, cradling her protectively in her arms.
"Go stand in one of the other tunnels," Cooper added. "It will give you some protection in case things get out of hand."
She obeyed, retreating to the cover of a vaulted passageway.
When he decided she was safely out of the reach of the blue storm, he went to work, using his psi senses to snag ambient blue dissonance energy out of the air.
The stuff was invisible to the eye at first, but as he forced it to coalesce into a tight, flaring ball, it took on a blue hue.
He manipulated it into a vortex. For some reason, that was the way blue ghost fire came together most naturally. He adjusted the dissonance wave patterns, emphasizing those that resonated in opposition to the patterns of the one that swirled on the floor.
The level of psi power in the confined space rose swiftly. He had to concentrate harder and harder to keep it contained. If it escaped his control, the fierce waves of energy would swamp not only his senses but possibly reach as far as where Elly waited, partially sheltered.
When he had achieved the shade and patterns that he needed, he began the process of merging his ghost with the blue vortex that blocked the corridor.
This was the most dangerous part of the process. The idea was to use his ghost to cancel out the energy patterns of the one on the floor. A mistake could easily result in an explosion that would send violent waves of psi power splashing outward, swamping his senses.
There was so much flaring light in the passage now that it was difficult to see. He squinted against the glare. Should have brought along a pair of dark glasses, he thought. He'd have to remember that the next time he went out on a date with Elly. His new motto was be prepared.
The two ghosts came together in a senses-jarring flare of light and energy.
The flames winked out with a suddenness that was disorienting.
"It's gone," Elly whispered. "That was absolutely amazing."
"You okay?" he asked.
"Yes. Rose and I are fine." She moved quickly toward him. "What about you?"
"I'm all right." For a while, he thought. And then I'm going to be in real trouble. Got to get out of here before the burn-and-crash hits me.
He did another quick frequency check. "According to this, we're almost on top of your friend."
"But she's nowhere in sight. There's only the sled."
"At least we now know why its frequency didn't resonate on the locator. The blue ghost fried it." He looked around. "We've got fifteen minutes, no longer. After that, we have to start back toward our entry point."
Elly looked at him with sudden concern. "You melted amber to deal with that blue ghost?"
"Yes."
Tuned amber didn't physically melt when you pushed an unusual amount of power through it, but if it was overworked, the stuff lost much of its ability to sustain an intense, highly concentrated psi focus.
He went forward quickly, watching the readout on the locator. When he passed a narrow doorway he got a sharp Ping-He stopped and looked into the room. Like all of the myriad rooms that branched off the endless corridors, the proportions felt a little off, not quite human. This particular chamber was too high and too narrow. The angles where the walls met didn't look right.